KARACHI, May 27: The textile industry has taken strong exception of the discriminatory approach of the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) as it has allowed two months period to foreign buyers to lift cotton purchased from the corporation and only one month to local buyers. Lesser storage period allowed to local buyers would result in increase of input cost as the industry would have to shift the huge quantity from the corporation’s warehouses within one month.

Furthermore, the cheap Pakistani cotton is being sold to industry’s competitors in the world market where value-added sector was already confronted with tough competition owing to higher cost in the country, the industry sources added. “The TCP’s buffer stocks should have been used to the advantage of the local industry rather than selling it to the foreign buyers,” a leading exporter of garment industry said.

The government has been talking about level-playing field and the availability of inputs at market related rates but TCP’s action has totally negated this theory, sources said. They demanded that the local industry should be allowed the same terms by the TCP as being allowed to foreign buyers as cotton is a basic raw material for the entire textile industry.